BioShock

July 28th, 2008, 17:51

Originally Posted by JDR13
I agree…. to a point. If a game is total crap, it's not going to sell regardless of the amount of advertising put into it. It might sell well initially but word of mouth travels too fast nowadays for a game of poor quality to have huge sales.

It'll still sell a lot better than it ought to in many cases, because of hype. Again, the only thing HUGE sales tells you, is that a lot of people bought it - and nothing else. Just like when millions of people buy the next Britney Spears CD. Quality MAY be a factor - but it's not guarenteed - not by a long shot.

What do level design and gameplay have to do with storyline? You must be incredibly stubborn to have finished Halo if you really thought it was that bad because it wasn't a short game at all. Your post seems to be somewhat self contradicting anyways. On one hand you proclaim it has "horrible" level design, which I would actually agree with, and that it was overly simplified. Then the next moment you're saying "It wasn't bad overall".

Who said level design had anything to do with storyline? I was listing bad points. I clearly remember completing it in less than 10 hours, and I was incredibly stubborn - yes. I enjoyed the actual shooter mechanics, and thought the "shield regen" feature was clever. Also, I though the vehicle sections were well done. But the most enjoyment I got from it was multiplayer, which WAS actually pretty good. I wouldn't say very good, and I don't think it's fair to rate a game overall just for its multiplayer. But it's definitely the best part of all the Halos.

I've been playing FPSs since the original Wolfenstein, and while I wouldn't claim Halo is great overall, it certainly isn't the complete POS that some PC gamers try to claim.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Huh? It was under 10 hours, and that was only because of the obvious / blatant / pathetic copy&paste of areas to artificially lengthen the game. It would have been under 8 hours otherwise.

Since when is close to 10 hours considered short for a FPS? Most FPS are well under 10 hours, and to be honest, Halo seemed to be a bit longer than that.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I would never call it a POS, but to me it is the most disappointing thing that Bungie did - I was excited as a multiplatform gamer who loved Marathon on the Mac and was also a PC gamer. I also think that it is absolutely fair to judge the Halo games in the context of games released at the time - in other words, to compare Halo 2 to Half-Life 2 and Far Cry.

I must admit that I don't think I've ever played any of Bungie's other games, I've heard a lot of good things about Marathon. As far as comparing Halo to the games you mentioned, I can't argue about that, even though you must admit that releaseing it on PC years later was obviously not a good idea on the part of Microsoft.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Since when is close to 10 hours considered short for a FPS? Most FPS are well under 10 hours, and to be honest, Halo seemed to be a bit longer than that.

Since before 2001 Actually, they were pretty short in the 'early days', got much longer in the 'golden era', and got shorter again in the 'set piece and cinematic' days.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I must admit that I don't think I've ever played any of Bungie's other games, I've heard a lot of good things about Marathon. As far as comparing Halo to the games you mentioned, I can't argue about that, even though you must admit that releaseing it on PC years later was obviously not a good idea on the part of Microsoft.

That (releasing late) is a real issue - because while I tend to take the view (for example) of Halo 2 against other 2004 games, others would be right in comparing it to 2007 games. I have that problem all the time as a Mac gamer (Fable *just* released for the Mac in May!)

Same for the first Halo, but I think that does better because it came out early in the technology cycle for the XBOX and was a game in development for years (originally for the Mac and later for the PC before MS bought Bungie and made the game a XBOX exclusive … in case you needed more reasons for PC gamers to *hate* Halo, Microsoft, and Bungie But anyway, because of that development cycle it didn't feel quite as ancient when it came out. Halo 2 actually surprised me - I mean, I have played some really bad FPS games (Groove Games couple of WWII Combat games and Kreed come to mind), but the action and gameplay in Halo 2 were really not very good at all.

Bioshock 2 wants the player much more clearly than in the predecessors to realize that he is at the bottom of the ocean is wet it should be claustrophobic. So, you finally several trips into the cool water and make the buildings of Rapture from the outside for granted. Since drill around the Big Sister before your eyes in a glass wall, which then under the pressure of the water breaks. spectacular, but really does not threatening, is the hero but in a massive diving suit. Speaking of diving suit: Portholes The limited view that we are in the shape of the Big Daddys experienced in the first Bioshock, is deleted from the successor…

Stupid Bioshock had me up until 4AM last night. I really dig it but wasn't expecting the action to be so difficult. Taking out the first two Big Daddy's depleted pretty much all my resources and the first little sister vanished so there was nothing to harvest. Bug or no? Anyway, I really like the puzzles and atmosphere.

Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002
I really dig it but wasn't expecting the action to be so difficult.

Shock to the System, eh? ;)

Taking out the first two Big Daddy's depleted pretty much all my resources and the first little sister vanished so there was nothing to harvest. Bug or no? Anyway, I really like the puzzles and atmosphere.

Bizzarely, I`m at the same point as you. In Fisheries, trying to take out the 2nd Big Dad. On hardest difficulty :P
I let the 1st sis free so cant` tell about them disappearing. Got some Adam anyway though.

I just finished that area. Sometimes I take the Big Daddy down, more often they take me down and I have to visit the pod of shame. Then I suck the life out of that little turd cuz I ain't nice LOL. I really enjoy the hacking and resource scrounging in this game. There is just barely enough stuff around to stay alive it seems. In Arcadia now. Awesome game!

I actually edited the config file to disable the Vita-Chambers when I played. That was prior to the v1.1 patch release, so there was no option to disable them in the menu.

I need to get around to playing Bioshock 2 one of these days. I've had it for about a year now, and never even installed it. I enjoyed Bioshock, but what I know about the sequel just doesn't really appeal to me.

Got the first wayback for $10 from Direct2Drive. Was relieved when it was finally over. The start is great though, but it gets VERY repetitive after while… Have no desire to get the second to play as a big daddy…

I've only killed one Big Daddy cleanly (oddly the first one) and frankly the action is the low point of the game…so I'll do the pod of shame with my head held high damnit. After all I've earned my stripes by completing some tough games. I've earned the pod! Show me anyone else here who has completed the entire Painkiller series!! Manhood defended!!!!

It is tense enough and I save constantly. I really don't enjoy fighting the Big Daddy's, the only way to defeat them it seems is to sink all your resources, take tons of damage and hope the architecture saves you. Now that I've done some research they are going down easier (did 99% damage before dying on the last one) but its still annoying. Did you play all the FEAR expansions hmmm???

Well I did notice once they commit to a charge they basically can't steer much so if you wait next to a corner they slide right by. Combine that with armor piercing…. Did you play and finish Borderlands hmmm???

Originally Posted by Thrasher
It didn't appeal to me… I don't like the cartoonish art style, and it seemed a bit too goofy for my tastes. Turned me off from the get go, the same way any anime art style does.

Seems superficial I suppose, but it's the same reason I haven't played any of the comic book based games or WoW. I barely got past the cartoony elements of King's Bounty: TL.

Hey, btw, did you ever play Quake 4?

Yup finished it a few months back. Fun game! You are missing out on Borderlands, great combat. You can turn off the cell shading with a config editor, never did it though. But anyhow, picked up New Vegas so that's next after Bioshock. Killed a Big Daddy clean tonight, but the second one keeps murdering me. Trying not to use the pod of shame…